Would YOU pay $15 for an iTunes movie?

A new report says that while 23 percent of broadband users would buy an iTunes …

Would you pay $15 for an iTunes movie? For me, I'm not so sure. The market research firm The Diffusion Group (TDG) just came out with a new report saying that broadband consumers appear to be open (enough) to paying about $10 per downloaded movie from the iTunes Music Store (or presumably any other online movie store) at 23 percent, but only a mere 14 percent of broadband consumers would be willing to pay $15 for an iTunes movie.

Michael Greeson from TDG thinks that Apple initially pushed for $10 per download (often speculated amongst rumor sites as the iTMS's movie target price up until very recently) but that movie studios weren't so keen on making practically half of what they were making from other sources. He believes that Apple struck a deal with these movie studios and agreed upon $15 as the price to target for iTunes movies even though it seems that customers are not so crazy about the speculated higher price. Despite this, he believes that Apple is completely poised and ready to jump into the online movie business:

"Although current services such as CinemaNow and Movielink continue to languish," Mr. Greeson said, "Apple is aware that the conditions are now suitable for extending iTunes to include full-length movie downloads. Consumer awareness has improved; video-over-broadband is now viable; studios are now making movies available for online download to DVDs; portable video platforms are improving qualitatively with each new generation; and Apple's brand awareness and credibility are at all time highs."

With today's introduction of Amazon's Unbox movie service, there is now another very large player in the market. However, Unbox's inability to play on Macs is ultimately very lame, so analysts, critics, and Apple fans alike are all still looking forward to next Tuesday's mysteriously not-so-mysterious "Showtime" event being hosted by Apple where they are expected to announce the movie download service. Many (but not all) titles from Amazon's Unbox service are at or over $15, so only time will tell amongst all of the large players in the online movie market whether $15 really is too much for most broadband consumers to swallow in order to watch Lance Bass's starring appearance in On the Line.